


Say it aloud (break the night into the day)

by twistedingenue



Series: Basic Bitches [1]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Darcy Lewis Prompt Week, F/M, First Time, Get Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-10 12:41:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/466396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedingenue/pseuds/twistedingenue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy Lewis has a very specific skill set, it mostly has to do with looking and acting like a college student. Clint does not approve of her missions shenanigans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lipstick

 

“What?” Darcy says, “Shut the front door.”

“You still look like you belong in college,” Agent Hill repeats, very slowly, arms akimbo. The Avenger common area is vacant, well, as vacant as it can be with JARVIS and people who are very good at sneaking around, but Darcy thinks that most of the Avengers are out.

“Did you come over to the Tower from the Helicarrier just to compliment me?” Because, while I’m flattered, I don’t think a relationship would work between us, as hot as we both are. I don’t really like girls, except for that time freshman year where I got really drunk and needed to make out with someone, and the only option around were a bunch of Pikes. And that was not happening.”

Agent Hill is not amused. Actually, Agent Hill is staring down Darcy with a glare that could put any from Director Fury to shame.

“We need someone that can still look and act like they are in college.” Hill says.

“Don’t you have agents for that sort of shit? Because I’m pretty sure my skill set is far more suited to hero-wrangling than secret agent.” Darcy has been a junior handler assigned to the Avenger Initiative for the past year, because while she was a good lab assistant for Jane; she has a sixth sense for knowing when the more talkative Avengers were about to break their covers.

“Actually, we mostly need you to audit a class or two, attend a few parties, and befriend this young man.” Hill turns her tablet around and it auto rotates on a surveillance photo of an unassumingly handsome, if obviously geeky-awkward young man.

Darcy raises her eyebrows and dips her head in appreciation. She is so down with this plan.

                                               *

The best part, in her opinion, of this whole she-bang, is being able to slip right back into her college wardrobe and get brand new school supplies on SHIELD’s dime. She doesn’t really have much of a dress code when she’s working normally, but over the past year she’s slowly been removing holey jeans and plaid shirts from daily wear to weekend wear, because this adult thing kind of blows.

They’ve moved her into a run-down studio apartment near Empire State University where this kid goes and Hill says they are moving her handler into the apartment across the hall and that he should be there shortly. She’s looking over a mission briefing, her course schedule and the dossier on one Charlie Tigner, a senior in the Biological Sciences who has come to the attention of SHIELD as a genius with artificial intelligences. Darcy’s mission is pretty much evaluative; is he someone that SHIELD should continue their interest with and start actively recruiting?

Or really more to the point, “Is this someone that Tony Stark will eat alive and leave without a soul?” which ….has happened before. Poor Dr Liu.

She’s registered into a half-semester philosophy seminar, and  contemplates asking about the need to do her own homework or if she can pawn it off on her handler when there is a knock on the door. “Yeah coming!” she says, stashing the briefing under a pillow on her thread worn futon. Did SHIELD go to a thrift store to furnish her place or did they just raid the science labs hiding space?

She’s actually surprised when it’s Clint, “You’re my handler?” she asks, “Because there went having my handler do my homework for me.”

“Very funny, Darcy.” Clint says. Clint’s pretty much the Avenger she has the least read on. He doesn’t usually need much protecting of his cover, just a little maintenance work to keep it up to date. If he didn’t come out of the woodwork whenever she got the urge to bake cookies and then steal a half dozen before they even cooled, she’d probably deny even knowing the guy outside of field reports and collecting arrows from around incident sites.

“Do you want to do homework and papers relating to…,” she goes back to the couch, pulling out the dossier, “The Mind and the Machine, an intensive look at approaches to the human brain”?  Because I really don’t. I still have to do our database work in addition to this, even if I delegated everything else downward. And since when do you handle field assets?”

“I don’t think I understood what all those words mean together, so no, you can do that. Or I will find someone. Is there anyone that you’d like to punish back at SHIELD?”

Darcy smiles goofily, and Clint laughs at her dreamy sigh. That brings her back to what he didn’t say, “So…handling?”

Clint rolls his eyes, and she loves the way that he can occasionally be a little five-year-old in that controlled body of his, “Cross-training. Vision doesn’t last forever.” He says the second part a little quieter but continues, “And they figured you’d respond well to someone who knows you.”

“You’ve never handled before, I’ve never done the spy thing before. Oh this is going to be lovely.” Darcy takes a few steps over to the seriously tiny bathroom and mutters about getting hazard pay for work above and beyond her pay-grade because seriously, she loves her apartment on the permanent administration residential floor of the Tower. This bathroom sucks. But covers are covers, and must be thorough. She fusses with her hair for a moment, finally deciding that a messy bun is easy enough to do, and looks at her face in the mirror.

Darcy is trying to decide who she’s going to be here. She’s ditched most of the oversized sweaters she wore at Culver, going for more a more fitted v-neck instead. But it’s makeup that gives her pause.

“What are you doing, Darcy?” Clint says leaning on the futon frame that’s like two feet away and she already hates this studio.

“Figuring out how much acting I want to do. This,” Darcy holds up a lipstick just slightly rosier than her lip color, “Is what I wear most days, and what I wore through college. This,” she holds up the bright red, “Is what I always wanted to wear as a kid, and what I wear when I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing and need a layer of protection against the world. But it’s actually more than that, because if I need to befriend this guy, I have to decide how to do it.” She takes a couple of steps and puts them one in each of Clint’s hands, “One says I’m approachable. I’m just another girl, another student. The other makes me intimidating, a challenge. I’ve read and re-read this guys file and the work already done on him and just can’t figure out which he’s going to respond to. So tell me, as my handler, what do you think?”

She doesn’t miss the way that Clint drops his gaze, looking her over, and settling on her mouth. He hands her back the more natural one, “You might be approachable, but you will never be just another girl.”

 


	2. Hello

 

Darcy finishes her primping in the bathroom, “This isn’t very much of a cover, you know. I make up far more interesting ones…”

“Thank you for that. Boris was especially terrible to be.” Clint says, “Stop making me smoke.”

“You’ve got me as Darcy Lewis, poli-sci major. If you didn’t notice, that was pretty much me two years ago. Real difficult, Clint.”

“I did notice that. That’s why we did it that way. We want you to act like you Darce, so where are your lies?”

“I needed a couple of credits to maintain a full load while doing an internship with Stark Industries legal department, so I’m taking this class because it was the least crappy of my half-semester options.”  Darcy recites, “And I think I’ll be able to use the information from the class to seed my dastardly plan to take over the world, starting by infiltrating the Avengers as a mild-mannered assistant.”

Clint stares at her for a few beats before rubbing his hands on his face.

“Well, okay, not that last part. Except for maybe taking over the world. That’s what every person in Political Science wants to do. I just want to buy the world a Coke, not subjugate you to my will.”

“Well that’s a refreshing change of pace. We’ve doctored your google results, created an interesting facebook account for you. You can thank Jane for the stunning pictures of you and her sunbathing in New Mexico,” Clint pulls out from his leather jacket a banged up looking cell phone and hands it over, “You’ll use this. I'm under Barton. I’m your contact for everything, you don’t even call the Tower without me.”

“I could make a horribly awkward joke about three-way calling phone sex, but since you were just a good sport about me taking over the world, I won’t.”

“I admire your restraint, kiddo. I hate you for it too, because I now owe Tony five bucks.” He watches as Darcy puts on her hat and coat, “Where you off to?”

“Surveillance says Charlie hangs out at a coffee shop near campus, and spends a couple of hours there most nights, awkwardly hitting on the women. I like his chances of making a friend tonight, don’t you?”

                                                                 *

Bean There, Done That is the single most depressing coffee shop that Darcy has ever stepped foot in. It is dark but dingy, and soulless in a way that would make Starbuck weep in envy. But the couches are comfy, the wi-fi is amazingly fast, and the coffee is cheap and tolerable. She settles in with an issued laptop from the bottom of the SHIELD tech heap and does a little of her day job while scoping out Mr Tigner in the corner.

He’s…one of those guys that would be amazingly good looking if he took more than a minute and a half to get ready in the morning. He needs a shave, because his five o’clock shadow is seriously scraggly and getting more towards a two am shadow, and his hair is just past the point of adorably scruffy. In short, there’s a part of Darcy that is just yelling, “PROJECT” and skipping around in a circle.

Not her Job. Not today, nitwit. Maybe if Charlie is a good guy greg and joins SHIELD she can give him a makeover.

She stretches; curling over the armrest of the couch she’s sprawled out on, and catches Charlie looking at her. Well, okay, staring at her tits, but she’s well aware of their magnitude and as long as the look is brief, it’s not creepy territory yet. She hauls herself up into a sitting position, and smiles at him.

He…immediately looks back down at his own computer. She has seen countless photos of him going up to girls and getting rejected. Okay, new plan, because he’s not going to approach her now. He’s a glutton for punishment. It’s only a few more moments until he looks back at her again. This time, she looks straight at him in annoyance, raising her eyebrows and tilting her head back. The guy is fucked up because he shyly smiles, and a few minutes later, brings her a coffee (that she watched the barista prepare).

“Darcy.” She says, “that better be black.”

“Charlie. And I asked for whatever you ordered before. So if it’s wrong, it’s not my fault.” He says. Darcy thinks this is his smooth voice. It isn’t. She’s pretty sure that Charlie Tigner does not have a smooth voice. “Whatcha working on? Novel? Poetry?”

“My secret plans for when I rule the world,” she replies back, “You?” This guy. Seriously, this is going to go nowhere unless he can…

“Cat videos.” He laughs, “I love the one with the cat on the roomba. When I get stuck on a project, I browse youtube for hours.”

Darcy pulls up a new screen on her computer, “I am a dog person. I have spent entire days glued to the Shiba Inu puppy cam.”

From there, it’s a short trip into falling into a wikihole starting with Spitz and ending well after midnight with Casimir Pulaski.  She finally pulls herself up from the couch where they have been sitting, “Oh crap, it’s late. I got my internship tomorrow. I can’t believe I spent hours looking at cat videos.”

“Oh yeah, of course. It was really great to meet you Darcy.” He says, in a small voice. The barista has been off and on staring at them for the past half hour, wanting to clean up, and Charlie finally notices, “I hope I’ll see you around.”

“School’s not that big. I’m sure we will.” Darcy says back. It’s okay that he didn’t catch the ploy for a phone number because she literally knows where he lives.

                                                        *

“Well?” Clint says from his doorway, before Darcy is even fully out of the stairwell and she jumps a bit at his voice.

“Jesus on a pogo stick, Barton! Give a girl a moment.”

Clint dutifully waits about tens seconds, “Well?”

“Did you know that Illinois as Casimir Pulaski Day as a state holiday? But that it’s an entirely different from the Federal observance of General Pulaski. Different months and everything,” Darcy repeats from memory, “Also, there are a lot of roomba videos on youtube. Roomba’s are not pets, but they act like them.”

“And the kid?”

“Weird. Not evil, yet. But weird. He likes to be shot down. He constantly plays himself down. He said nothing about what he’s working on or his studies. Are you sure he’s a genius, because he is nothing like the geniuses I know.”

“Goodnight Darcy.” He says, closing the door to his apartment. But not before she takes a look inside. His place is much nicer. It’s really not fair at all.

 


	3. Rain

 

Darcy and Charlie bond over youtube videos, facebook messages and working together on her homework at Bean There, Done That. Darcy couldn’t believe no one at SHIELD wanted to help her, not even Bruce, and he was the nicest guy in the world. With Charlie, though, she’s passing pretty well.

And how hilarious is it that she’s worried about passing a class, when she’s normally trying to juggle covers and reports and Tony Stark’s inability to keep a straight face in an interview?

                                                                 *

In class, Charlie is quiet and astute. She gathers that this is not the case in his biology classes, or his engineering classes, because the stories he and his friends tell always feature him shining and outwitting everyone else. But in the philosophy class, he wrestles with the same ethical constructs, the same questions of “what is the mind? Should we replicate it?” as everyone else.

But, Darcy notices, he can’t quite answer the questions from any particular side. There’s not even a lean in either direction and that troubles her.

                                                        *

She’s seen more of Barton in the past three days than she has probably in the entire year she’s worked for SHIELD. Her status report is due in, and Clint has to help her. Her first draft was dismal and too straightforward.

“We have code,” Clint says, leaning over the back of the couch and over Darcy, retyping a sentence that Darcy swears was perfect, saying that you can’t just out and out say that they guy is wrestling with a moral ambiguity within himself.

“Fine then, you write it.” She pouts, starting to lift her laptop up to him, and instead he jumps over the back of the couch and lands ass-first on the cushion next to her. He makes a shit-eating grin look so good, and she hands the laptop over to him, and ruffles his hair.

She makes him coffee and works late in the night, and falls asleep against his shoulder for a few nights in a row.

                                                        *

She finally lures Charlie off-campus to her apartment. Not for homework, but for the makeover she’s wanted to give him since, okay a month, because that’s how long she’s known him.

Barton’s pretending to do laundry when she walks up with Charlie, who she is arm in arm with after climbing up the stairwell. Charlie loves stairs, says they relax him. All the repetitiveness, he says. He watches the two of them as Darcy fumbles for her keys, finally shoving her bag into the kid’s hands to root through.

“You are a peach, Charlie. Helpful as always. Let see what we can do about this then?” she says before unlocking the door, and running a hand through Charlie’s decidedly ugly mop of hair.

Barton says, “Be careful there, Lewis. Never know what could be hiding in hair like that.”

“Don’t mind him, my neighbor is just really overprotective.”

                                                        *

Empire State has a frat entirely devoted to Sciences. It’s just the thing they would have.  And of course their frat house-apartment-lab-thing has a cardboard cutout of Stark right there in the living room. Darcy can’t stop staring at it. It’s like his eyes are following her.

Charlie says there’s a party on Friday and he’s tired of going alone. “It is not a date”, he says, “It’s an experience that everyone should have at least once in their life.”

                                                        *

This experience turns out to be the industrial strength still that is installed in the basement next to a workshop area for a couple of engineers in the fraternity. Between the engineers and the chemists, they have it monitored twenty-four seven, every day of the year, and it produces a liquid so alcoholic and yet so smooth, that everyone comes to their house twice. Once for the experience and once to watch others having their experience.

Darcy’s watching Charlie hit it off with a girl in a bright yellow sundress. He’s strikingly handsome now, with the hair out of his eyes, and shaved smooth around the jaw line. He doesn’t do scruffy well, but cleaned up? He’s a masterpiece. And it shines through him. The girl is cute and about the same age, and Darcy introduces herself to a vast variety of Jell-O-shots while keeping an eye on them.

                                                        *

She loses him about the fifth shot in, but by now she’s found the best game ever, because finding small groups of the brothers together and daring them to prove something to her is amazing. One of them even builds her a little catapult to prove that yes, he can shoot a marshmallow into the next building over.

                                                        *

“Hey, you aren’t a cop, are you?” someone in the front room says, loudly. It’s about three in the morning, and Darcy’s still rolling on, detailing her zombie invasion plan and artfully avoiding any references to the Helicarrier (she’s going to hijack it to wait out the worst) or who she is bringing with her (Natasha. Always Natasha). She’s absolutely brilliantly and resoundingly lit, and smoking a cigarette with a bunch of geology students in the kitchen.

“No man, I’m just looking for Darcy,” she hears. And groans, because it’s her very own personal buzz kill, “She still here?”

Darcy loves to mess with her handlers head, “Oh my god,” she bubbles out to the girl next to her, “I am so drunk, I could totally fuck a teke.” Three boys look up from a nearby room and she has to clarify, “Oh, not you!”

Clint’s heard her and walked into the kitchen. He pulls the cigarette out of her mouth, “Come on Darce, time to go home.”

“Christ Darcy,” the girl says to her, “Who is this, your brother?”

“No, worse, my hand….handsome yet overprotective neighbor.” She says in an aside before Clint pulls her out of the kitchen, out of the house and into the street to walk home in the overcast and humid, chilly night.

                                               *                                   

 

“It’s a party, Barton, and I’m in college. I am not only allowed to get stupid drunk, I’m encouraged,” Darcy giggles out. She’s a happy, stubborn drunk, “And you’ve seen me stupid drunk before. Weren’t you there for the Tony Stark Fox News interview drinking game?”

“There is a big difference between drunk at home and drunk on an op, losing track of your mark, almost breaking cover—”

“I did not almost break cover! And it’s a frat party, again, supposed to drink. It’d be weird if I didn’t!”

“There are ways. You are supposed to act drunk on an op when needed. Not actually be drunk.”

Darcy pouts and says, “Well, I’m a method actor.”

 

There’s a flash of lightening and a large clap of thunder, and it drizzles mildly for a minute before a downpour begins. Darcy is soaked in seconds and makes for the nearest awning in a stumbling rush. Clint catches up, a footstep behind her, and tries to cajole her into walking again. But Darcy is stubborn and isn’t wearing the warmest clothes to begin with she points out, picking at her shirt, wet against her skin and hugging every line of her body.

“No way, that rain is too cold,” Darcy whines, pulling Clint closer to her by his shirt, because maybe he can soak up the raindrops that get through the awning. Instead, the always-prepared Clint takes off his coat and hands it to her. She scrambles to get it on and grins broadly up at him, dancing a little through the armholes. He looks really amazingly good in a tight black t-shirt, and the rain is still catching him a bit, and this is more than okay, “Wow,” she says, “You are seriously hot.” On impulse, she leans up and kisses him. She means a friendly peck of a thank you, but lingers just a beat too long when she reaches his lips, softer than she expected. And keeps lingering when Clint starts responding back like a dream.

He steps her backward against the storefront wall, gently pinning her shoulders with his strong hands, and coaxes her mouth open. Darcy is almost gone at just the weight of him, the insistent exploration, and she’s so goddamn happy at it, and makes a pleasant murmuring noise at the back of her throat. She doesn’t have too much range of motion in her arms, but she moves to rest them on his hips.

The touch startles Clint, and he lifts his head. He looks struck and then a little lost. Darcy tries to keep her grip on his, but steps back.

“Uh,” says Darcy, “That was…”

“Not something I can repeat.” He says firmly, his head lowered and defeated.

That really wasn’t what at all she wanted to hear, because that was actually something, there was a something there that was amazing, but, “Okay,” is all she says for now. 

 

It’s still a downpour, but Clint’s coat is warm, and she doesn’t mind getting her hair getting even more wet. Clint doesn’t say anything the rest of the way back to the apartments, just walks with his hands stuffed in his pockets, like he can’t trust them, trust himself not to reach out. She’s…still not quite sure what just happened, because, yes she’s drunk and while she can get a little impish, she was only the instigator. He was the one that kept it up.

He wasn’t desperate. Darcy’s pretty good at reading into kisses, lots of practice at that, and she knows what a desperate for touch person is like, because she’s been there, been that girl, and she didn’t get that from Clint at all.

You don’t grow up backwards of nowhere without knowing what need is when you fumble right into it. It sobers her, trying catch a look from the stoic man next to her, and realizes he’s shut her right out.

He doesn’t even walk Darcy the three feet over to her door, just tells her to sleep tight in a closed off voice, and watches as she closes her door from the hallway.

 


	4. Crimson

 

Clint hadn't really meant to keep tabs on Darcy after they both left New Mexico, but it happened anyway. Not that she had known he was there doing post-mission cleanup.

His last sight of her had been watching her pack up the car to head back to Culver and finish school. The weather had warmed. As it did, her bulky sweaters had slimmed into figure skimming shirts. In the dusty rose sunset, wiping the sweat from her forehead, Darcy's hair created a crimson aura around her head and shoulders the way that brunettes often just glow, beautiful and private.

It’s an image he's been trying to get out of his head since.

                                                      *

He hadn’t expected to see her again, but there for the grace of god, Darcy is recruited by SHIELD, only at first to remain as Dr Foster’s assistant after graduation. It’s obvious by the first month that she’s both radically over and under qualified for that position. She invents work for herself, going from lab to lab, and tries to help out everyone from Stark to the guy that cleans Banner’s test tubes, and eventually she’s folded into the Avenger Initiative. It’s not a job that really has a title, but someone has to keep them straight and private. Darcy rolls with it. She’s an inventive writer for covers, has a flair for when things need to be dramatic, but can keep their home covers stable and just the right amount of interesting to be believable. Clint like the Clint Barton she creates for him.

He tries to ignore her, avoid her — because a pretty, smart, happy girl like her doesn’t need someone like him. He watches her slowly gain the competence needed in this job, in building cover and lives out of nothing, all to keep him safe and secret.

                                                      *

 Coulson said to him once, “If you aren’t boneheaded enough to get yourself killed, your vision will wan long before your use.” Since Clint had never anticipated being the age he is now, much less older, that had never been a thought. Don’t get involved; just play your favors and flings. Enjoy the one you are with, but move on and don’t give expectations.

He eventually asks to start being trained to handle, and asks for his first assignment be something to just ease him into it. He figures it will be some routine op, the kind that other agents go on. His higher ups have a shit sense of humor. He probably deserves it.

                                                      *

She tasted like smoke and cheap sweet alcohol. Darcy makes him nervous and twitchy, makes him want to be involved. A twitchy sniper is ineffective, makes mistakes, gets people killed or misses his mark. He can’t allow that, can’t ever miss.

He’s trained to observe, he’s trained to see what others don’t, and her eyes look at him with hurt and loss before relaxing into her open and easy mask, quick to roll her eyes and laugh. He knows she’s strong enough to get over a single kiss, but really, all he wants to do is make her delicate and unravel in his arms.

                                                      *

He can’t avoid her now, no matter how much he wants to turn back the clock, he can’t arrive a little earlier to the party to collect her, text her, call her a cab. Anything to take back his stupidity and the feel of her wide, lush lips on his, or the slope of her shoulders, the tentative touch he pulled away from.

The work goes on, even if he doesn’t come around as much in the evenings to check up on her. She emails him her reports, and he changes them into SHIELD-friendly language. He goes to the gym, a nearby range; gun, not archery, but the compact weight of a service pistol feels just as good in his hands. Everyday, ordinary actions. The life he’s lead for most of his adult life.

                                                      *

He gets a text from Darcy when she’s supposed to be in class. She’s never texted him at this time, she’s always just given Clint a full recounting of the class afterwards, and he hates to say it, but this AI and Brains and Ethics shit might just be interesting. He’s looking forward to going home when the class is up and throwing some of it in Stark’s face, let Darcy trap Tony in lines of reasoning so convoluted that even that ass gives up. He smiles just thinking about those two and their ability to argue about anything.

It says: **I don’t think we are the only ones scouting. Will call ASAP.**

About ten minutes later, his phone buzzes again: **fuck. Charlie is idiot; thinks double dating is best, says I better find someone to bring with. I think it’s you.**

**Why am I being dragged into this?**

**Think someone nefarious has the same plot structure we do.**

And that’s how he ends up on a date with the first and last woman he wants to be on a date with. She emails the details and directions to a shitty college restaurant that Charlie apparently just loves.

                                                                        *

It’s the shittiest Italian food around, Clint thinks, but he’s had a lot of Italian, much of it in Italy. This is canned sauce and too sweet bread. There’s America-style, and then there’s crap, and this is the latter. But it’s also an all you can eat night, and Darcy and Charlie are apparently in some sort of contest to see who can eat the most.

Darcy’s winning so far.

The other girl, Sarah, looks amused in an “I’m too old for this” way. And he can see why, she’s older than Darcy is, if the wrinkles beginning to form around her eyes are any indication. She’s pretty, sure, but it’s not a twenty-one year old girl pretty. Twenty-six? He still hasn’t figured out what organization she’s from, but Darcy has good instincts about people, and can fill him in later with anything he missed.

“How’d you two meet?” Sarah asks, “I mean, obviously, you don’t go to school at Empire.”

“Neighbor.” Darcy says, mouth full, “Helped me move in, and it’s been hard to kick him out ever since. He’s like a puppy that way.”

“You didn’t have that much to decorate with. I make a good statue, I’m told.” He’s done the living statue thing, actually. Bronzed up with a placard, ready with an equally bronzed bow. He was proud of that one, he did it himself, both the makeup and the bow.

“Please, like I can ever get you to shut up.”  Darcy rolls her eyes and stuffs more in her mouth, “But I’ll keep you around. Sarah met Charlie at that party I went to.”

Sarah kisses Charlie on the cheek, “He’s a sweetheart.” She looks at Clint with an expectant look, and he knows he’s being challenged. But is it a challenge born out of keeping Darcy away from Charlie, or because he’s recognized? He decides to play it for the former and a minute or so later he rests an arm across Darcy’s shoulder in the booth. She freezes, just slightly at the touch, and then melts into it, and as she continues talking, bright and easy, and eats like a champion, she touches his hand and plays with his fingers. Light strokes with her fingernails trace patterns against the top of his hands. It takes every ounce of ability to keep focus.

All four walk back to campus together, and he wraps that arm around her waist as they walk close together. It’s so easy, better than the kiss even, because he’s got her in the light of the setting sun, and that warm crimson glow is even more beautiful close up.

He hopes Darcy will forgive him when he has to pull away when they walk back home. Because he can’t really forgive himself.

 


	5. Vow

 

He doesn’t even touch her on the way home. Clint looks at her, sure, with a smile that verges on shy but is probably more along the lines of thoughtful. Darcy feels anger rising inside of her with each step and each caught glance. He’s about to open his own door when she has had enough and pulls him over through hers.

“What the fuck is wrong with you Barton?” she yells after closing the door but before bothering to turn on the lights, crossing her arms and collapsing over herself, “I kiss you and okay, I thought I got the hint, not interested. But this? Is just mean.”

“Darcy…” Clint starts, and suddenly, Darcy isn’t interested in what he has to say.

“No, shut up. I’m pretty sure I know why you started it today, because that Sarah chick was sizing you up, and not to see if you might take her to prom someday. But you can’t keep doing that to me and expect me to be okay with it.”

Most of the time, Clint has a carefully cultivated confident expression; ready to fit in wherever he needs to go, and she’s never seen him without either it, or the sneaky spy shit. But now he looks uncertain, unbalanced and  more than a little lost. “Okay, now you can talk.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you, I’m sorry,” he says sincerely, stilling his hands behind his back.  He can’t quite keep them from moving, even when he is still, there’s always energy thrumming going through his body, visible to anyone who knows Clint well enough. They’ve been in each other’s back pockets for weeks now, and she’s got enough of his file memorized in her head see beyond his training. “It was cruel of me to use you like that, it was beyond our boundaries.”

“Our boundaries? Seriously Clint, do you actually like me?” She says as flat as she can make it, because Lewis’s do not cry over men. Clint disintegrates in front of her, and she wants to help him pick them back up. He’s a quick thinker, and he’s negotiating with himself how to respond, “The truth, cowboy. Nothing but it. Whatever else there is, it can’t hurt any more than it already does.”

“Yes.” Head bowed, he’s lost behind the shadows of the dark room, “Yes, for awhile now.”

“Since when?”

“New Mexico.”

Darcy didn’t know he had been there, which is actually a bit of a shock because she’s read the file on her whole wacky four day adventure in the desert, “That’s…longer than I would have thought.”

He snorts, “It’s a ridiculous amount of time to hold onto a crush, that’s for sure.”

“Perfect world, what would be going on right now,” Darcy takes a few steps forward, enough that she’s an arm length away, but not in his personal space. Clint’s balking a little, “No excuses, no promises, it’s a perfect world.”

She can’t even begin to imagine what’s going on in his head as a slow, sly and dirty grin moves across his face, lifting it back up to look at her, following her figure with precision. That look itself is about a dozen microhelens, enough to launch a dozen ships, and she blushes at the intent behind it.

“But that’s only a perfect world. We certainly don’t live in one.”

“We could.” Darcy points out, “I like you too. I’ve enjoyed all this time, except for the past few days. I don’t even regret kissing you.”

“I’m your handler.”

“For about two more weeks. I give my recommendation at the end of the class.”

“You are technically my handler.”

“I don’t have a no-dating clause in my contract, do you? And if you start giving me that too old or too dangerous bullshit, then you don’t know me well enough. I make up my own mind about the men I am with, and if those are the reasons, ” and he rolls his eyes at her, “so those were the reasons, figures you’d be self-sacrificing, if those are all of them then I don’t accept your premise.” She takes the next step forward, and her composure rocks as she does, but she completes what she started under the awning in the rain and rests her hands on his hips, rubbing her thumbs in the space between shirt and jeans.

“I’m not,” he stutters out, breathing out when skin hits skin, “I’m not exactly a whole and well person here. Never going to be easy.”

“Darling,” she says, pressing against his broad chest, “I grew up hunting, passed my SHIELD quals on the first try. I can fix a car and paint my nails in the same day, I’m not going to shy away from something worth having just because it might be difficult, I promise you, I’m going to be able to handle myself.”

He leans down, resting their foreheads together, “So this?” he asks quietly.

“This is very good.”

Clint tilts her head up with one hand, snaking his other arm around Darcy, and finally kisses her. He’s solid against her, warm weight all around her body now. She captures his lower lip in a soft bite and that changes everything. Suddenly, he turns wild and frantic, gripping her closer and draws kisses down the side of her neck, burying himself in the crook there. “Oh fuck,” she says as he bites gently just at her collarbone and breathes on the wet he leaves there. He’s insistent and impatient, walks her backwards until she’s falling over the arm of her futon frame, her legs hinging over the armrest, Clint between them with a self-satisfied smile.

He’s too quiet for his own good, and she wonders what it would take to unnerve him, drop the remnants of his guard, but her own thoughts are lost as Clint pushes up her shirt slowly, hands moving up her sides. He lingers just an extra moment as he passes over her bra, cupping as he goes. She’s never been quiet herself, and sighs as he does, “Too slow, too slow,” she says.

“Oh sweetheart, it’s my first time looking at you like this, I’m committing it to memory.” He says back as she arches her back, and off goes her shirt.

And off goes her cellphone, playing “Somebody’s Watching Me”, the ringtone she selected specifically for Charlie.

“No!” she says, “Ugh, I hate him.”

“The op always comes first,” Clint says sadly, “we will have plenty of time.”

Charlie’s voice is small and terrified, “Darcy, I didn’t know who else to call. I think I might be in trouble. I need help.”

Darcy immediately changes gears and says seriously, “Where are you? I promise I’ll help you.”

 


	6. Saturday

 

Saturday, 2 AM

  Charlie says he’s in the labs at Empire, which probably isn’t the safest space to be,  but it’s not his dorm room or any place that Sarah has actually been, and there is the barest sliver of security. Clint can bypass it easily and both Clint and Darcy are on guard and discreetly armed, and wearing grubby dark clothes. They find Charlie drumming his fingers in an arrhythmic pattern on a lab table, trying to work but he can’t focus.

Darcy had written a report more or less stating that Charlie is not the type to get lost in work, but more methodical, and can be interrupted once he reaches his next step without a problem, and can easily get back to work. He’s not Stark where interruptions will either derail or be met with a fuck you, or Jane who gets so wrapped up she’ll emerge from her lab three days later with a dazed expression and a prestigious need for sleep, sex and food. Not always in that order.

“Darcy—” he says, rushing up and then sees Clint walk in behind her, “Barton?”

“He’s a hand with...everything, Charlie,” Darcy says, “I trust him, and you should too.”

Charlie nervously agrees and at Darcy’s urging, tells what happens. As she suspected, Sarah was cribbing off of the plot.

“We went back to my dorm, and we were drinking you know, and that’s normal, even if it was early in the night. But…I don’t know, I think she slipped me something weak, because I fell asleep and next thing I know there’s these three other guys. Two were huge, bodyguards maybe? And a third in a yellow polo — that’s all I really remember about him.”

“That’s okay Charlie, what happened next?”

“They offered me a job, with some group called Advanced Idea Mechanics, something like that. I told them I don’t take any job without at least googling the company. Something didn’t seem right about them, they were talking about weapons AI’s and stuff. I like my robots, Darcy; I don’t know if I could if they were hurting people. And then Sarah, Sarah’s still there, but she looked so different, so much older, and she says, “take him”…”his hands are moving everywhere, his face animated and wild, “ and they move in on me.” He moves his eyes from Darcy to Clint and back again, “I don’t know how I got out of there, but I made my way here, it’s the complete other end of campus, and it’s got a password lock.”

He doesn’t connect that there’s a password lock that Darcy probably would have been able to get around given five minutes, but he’s a little out of sorts.

“It’s probably not safe here, Barton?” Darcy says.

“I’ve got a place for us to go.” He says back, looking up from his phone, “but we are going to have to hurry. This place is bugged.”

“What?” Charlie yelps, “Bugged?”

“Yep, see on the hinge of the door there? Microphone. If these guys are bad news, they know you are here by now.”

Darcy shoves Charlie out the door, “We follow him.”

 

3 AM

“Where are we going?” Charlie asks, trying very hard to keep the pace that Darcy and Clint have been setting for the past hour.

“Safe place.” Is all Clint responds with, and Darcy kind of wants to hit him on the head or something, because really, that is not helping. They both hear a snap, not far away from them.

“Did you see?” Darcy starts to say, but Barton nods quickly, grabs the phone out of her pocket and programs something in.

“You run here, okay Darce?” she looks at what’s been written. It’s a coded phrase, one of the few codes she has clearance to know,  required to know and she can decode it in her head to get the address. She nods her assent, “Stay safe.” He says, letting concern drop into his voice for just a second.

She grabs Charlie by the arms, as if they were just out for a stroll. When the fighting starts, she makes a break for it, and if she’s dislocated the budding scientists shoulder, she’s not sorry, because he’s alive.

 

6 AM

“So are you like, rich or something?” Charlie asks, exhausted. He hasn’t slept, and neither has Darcy. Clint brought them to a SHIELD safehouse not far from the tower. It’s bare minimalism, but it’s clean. Darcy’s seen the holding patterns of at least three agents out the window, and thinks she heard Natasha out in the hallways talking to Clint.

“What makes you say that?” she hears herself say.

“Barton isn’t your over protective neighbor. He’s your bodyguard, right?”

“Not quite. I haven’t been the most truthful with you.” Darcy admits, “But I really can’t say why.”

Charlie’s calmed down in the past few hours, and Barton relocated his shoulder,  but it still takes him a minute to process what’s she’s said, “Okay,” he sighs, “I think I can trust you for now. Will you tell me later.”

“Tomorrow, I promise.” Darcy smiles, “Finals are such a stressful time.”

Charlie starts laughing, and she can’t help but join in.

 

9 AM

Daylight impossibly is when Charlie finally sleeps, but Darcy’s feeling responsible and can’t or more likely just won’t sleep until she gets to her own bed. Any of them, and it feels really weird that the lumpy futon is as much of her own bed as the giant, soft bed back at the tower; has it really been months since she was there?

She feels Clint move into her space, resting his chin on her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her, low and encapsulating. He presses a small kiss, and it almost feels like a concession to what’s just starting in the face of duty. He pulls back gently, moving himself to face her.

“We got Sarah, who is actually a Caroline, for what it’s worth. I took out one of the brute squad in the fight. Natasha says they are operating as an independent cell, so there shouldn’t be more than one other big guy and the actual recruiter out there. We’ve got agents out there. I think we just need to lie low with Charlie for the day. Recruitment cells are….finicky. They cut their losses quickly. They probably meant to grab him for the lab anyways, or just kill him outright.”

“Poor Charlie, so in demand and he doesn’t even realize it.”

“They had their eye on you too.” Clint says deadpan, “And strangely, not because of SHIELD. They figured anyone close to this guy was something, and we did a really good job on your background.”

“How is this my life?”

“We assigned it to you,” Clint smirks at his own joke, “It happens Darce. It’s part of the trade.”

“Your trade. I just make up stories. You should see what doesn’t make it into the…”

“You’ll wake him up. Don’t want him to overhear.”

 

4 pm

Darcy is going to shoot Clint if he decides to sing anymore. Now is not the time. It’s not that he has a bad voice, far from it, actually. It’s a very nice voice. But she is sick and tired of it, and still hasn’t slept.

Clint doesn’t like being cooped up, she can tell. He’s had a few conversations with Natasha and knows he’s on the make too, can’t leave, can’t run up inside the building to keep the occupants safe. He’s grounded for once, and a confined Clint is a disgruntled Clint.

Charlie doesn’t help any. Rested, he’s anxious, and sprawling equations and theories over a notepad. He constantly asks questions, asks almost stupid questions about how much longer do they have to be here.

“Charlie, cant we have a normal conversation?” she asks.

“I’m sorry that I’m freaked out about almost being killed here.”

“Let’s try something else then, what are you working on there?” she points to the notepad.

“Um, just something I play with when I’m bored. It’s a uh, new neural network programming function. I’ve been working with figuring out how to get an AI to seek out its own resources, like instead of having to direct it to do so, have them learn to self diagnose and find it on their own. I’m having trouble with, well an end point. My sims keep stuffing themselves.”

“Wow, that’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah, I mean, we don’t want a bunch of power hungry robots running around, I think we’ve got enough problems with the ones that attack the city at random.”

“I used to be freaked out when I worked at an office building that had the computerized mail carts.”

Clint snorts but Charlie asks, “What happened?”

“I see stranger things running around legal at Stark Industries.”

 

8 PM

Clint comes back in from the hallway to whisper in Darcy’s ear, “We are clear. Clean up’s complete. Everyone’s safe and the bad guys are in custody.”

Darcy almost falls asleep at the news, but they walk Charlie back home instead. Once he’s safely in his dorm room, and the agents assigned to guard are hidden away.

 

         It’s enough just to walk side-by-side back to their dinky apartments, and Clint pulls her down onto his much nicer bed to sleep. Darcy’s mother always said you could tell much about a man by actually sleeping with him, “And not sex, daughter. I mean a real sleep. Through the night when you aren’t expecting it.” She curls in and lays her head against his chest, an arm spread out over his waist. She’s tired enough to not even start appreciating any of this, and she’s out like a light before his arms are fully around her.

 


	7. Living

 

Clint wakes up with a mouth full of soft brown hair, which serves him right for trying to breath with his mouth first thing in the morning. He catches a hint of the shampoo that Darcy must use, something a little sweet and fruity, but it’s mostly covered by smell of sweat from a long day at the safe house and running for her life. 

She had taken the code, ran just as he asked, got their recruit safe. He’s thinking too far ahead, calling Charlie their recruit, but if he’s got any eye Charlie may come around. He wouldn’t have the first time Darcy had brought him within visual distance, but between whatever has happened during the past month and just the last night, he thinks that the trust in Darcy he showed by calling her might bring him round.

She’s a bit of blanket hog, at least after a night of observation. She curls them around herself and then moved during the night to wrap herself in it, so that by morning, Clint’s feet are pretty much the only part of him still covered. He smiles, and brings his free hand up to touch the side of her face, and then wind a lock of hair around his fingers. She stirs at the touch, murmuring softly.

“It’s too early,” she grumbles, probably still mostly asleep, “ ‘mnot working today.” Clint gently pulls the covers away from her, “no, warm.”

“Promise you’ll still be warm. I’ve been told I put off a lot of heat when there’s someone next to me.” She relents, and Clint pulls the covers over himself, and presses himself to Darcy’s back and his hands roam over the side of her body. Darcy must have gotten up in the night and changed, she’s wearing one of his black t-shirts and her panties, but he reaches bare skin, and drags his fingernails lightly over as much of her leg as he can comfortably reach.

Darcy opens her eyes, breathing in a short gasp, which goes straight to his dick, and he draws his hand over her stomach, soft and yielding against his spanning fingers. He wants to feel every bit of skin, see if it’s just the same. He reaches the curves of her breasts, cups them and feels the weight, “I believe this is where we left off?”  His thumbs slide over her nipples.

She lifts herself up from the bed just a fraction, and makes quick work of the shirt, throwing it across the floor and turns in his arms. Her hands grip his shoulders, and she kisses him hard and insistent. Now, instead of smoke she tastes like hard won pride and a drink of water before bed, and he catalogs that away so he can compare each kiss later. Letting her pull him up, she straddles him.

“Fuck,” he says, between the kisses, “you are just gorgeous, Darcy.” She’s dragging her nails against his arms, stopping at his biceps to squeeze before continuing, firm presses against his chest. Not enough to leave marks, but enough to be appreciated, and makes a small noise against into her mouth.

“Oh god, let’s…” is her reply, “You’ve got…?”

“No, wasn’t planning on anything like this, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do.” He nuzzles into her chest, kissing each breast, taking a moment to just barely run his tongue over the tip of each nipple. Darcy throws her head back with a soft moan, and Clint grins dirty and pushes her over, trapping a wrist with each hand, then transferring so that he has a gentle grip on both her wrist with just one, held against her chest.

Both of them are breathing ragged now, both smiling, long and easy smiles, and her eyes roll up as he drops his hand to her hips, pushing down her panties a little awkwardly with just one hand and cupping her whole.  His first touch into her folds already elicits a moan, and the noise doesn’t stop. He’s focused on her, unraveling her already on a Sunday morning, and he drops her hands to run his hand up and down her body, kissing into her mouth, sucking the tip of her tongue.

Her freed hands are eager, taking him up, hot, hot hands, setting a steady rhythm. He matches her, stroke for stroke, rubbing circles against her clit and entering her with a finger, then two. She’s warm and tight, and he can’t wait for more. He’s surprised that she’s not a talker, because she talks the rest of the time. But she’s not quiet, and she gives direction until she’s shuddering around his fingers and in his arms.  She’s a beautiful sight, vibrant with life and color in her cheeks.

He learns quickly, a hand pulling him away, that she’s too sensitive for even a light touch after coming, which he hopes against hope means that Darcy just needs a moment, because he wants to see her face when he has her going again and again. That image pulls him over the edge, coming on stomach, head reeling and being drawn in for another grounding kiss.

                                                                 *

Two weeks later, Darcy takes her final for the class. He’s proud of her, actually taking it, commitment to the mission.  She’s not sweating the results of the final because, “It doesn’t really matter. I could have written ‘Tony Stark does not care for your ethical concerns, robots are his only friends’ as the answer for each question. That I didn’t shows total restraint.”

She’s also set up a “job interview” at SHIELD for the Friday after they take the final. Clint knew that Charlie was going to be asked, the moment Darcy took his phone call. She had such an expression of dismay on her face. She’s not an agent, not a spy, just a normal woman who grew fond of the potential asset.

Well, Darcy’s not exactly normal, not the way she can pull the pieces right out of you and put them all together, but that’s another story. For now, he’s waiting in the public lobby of SHIELD for Charlie Tigner, set to graduate in a month and a half from Empire State University’s Biological Sciences department. He’s snazzed up in his non-Avenger uniform, basic black and he knows it’s a little threatening. Everyone looks a little threatening in a SHIELD uniform.

He spots Charlie the moment he checks in with the receptionist. She points the kid over to him. The look on Charlie’s face gives Clint endless enjoyment, because Charlie is working out a puzzle. “Barton? You are interviewing me?”

Clint leads him into a small room off the lobby, leaving two additional chairs free opposite where he tells him to sit, “The rest of the team will be here in just a moment.”

“But you? You are interviewing me?”

“Mister Tigner, you’ve already had your interview. You passed with flying colors.” Agent Hill says, walking into the room, a handful of papers, “What we have is an offer.”

“And the explanation that I promised.” Says Darcy, behind her. She’s wearing her SHIELD uniform. Darcy never wears it, hates the thing, and how it clings to her. How the zipper does absolutely nothing and is always unzipping more than it should. She looks amazing in it, the strong, tough woman she certainly is. But she never has needed to wear it, her cover is as a lab assistant, and when she’s out on SHIELD business, there’s other gear to wear.

Charlie looks almost murderous at Darcy, “You lied to me?”

Maria only puts down the paperwork, hands a top sheet to Darcy, “If he signs, call me back in?”

“Of course, Ma’am” Darcy responds back immediately and Agent Hill leaves the room. Clint’s okay about this, because Maria does not handle Darcy and her sarcasm all that well. Come to think of it, she doesn’t handle his own very well.

“You lied to me?” Charlie repeats, stricken and ramrod straight in his chair.

“You knew I was lying to you the day we saved your butt. I told you as much. I can tell you more now.” Darcy says, sitting in the chair next to Clint and across from Charlie, “As long as you sign this.” She pushes the top sheet over to him, “It’s a pretty standard non-disclosure agreement. It’s not the full SHIELD one, it’s not even the only one you might sign today, but after you sign it, I’ll tell you what’s going on.”

He eyes her warily, but his curiosity gets the better of him and he signs. She takes the paper from him and looks it over and smiles wickedly.

“So I’m still Darcy Lewis. I was a poli-sci major, but I actually graduated from Culver over a year ago. I tried not to lie much to you, moron, but I had to. I don’t have an internship at Stark Industries but I am a very junior handler assigned to the Avenger Initiative…”

“What does that even mean?”

“It mostly means I clean up their messes. But here’s the important part. I was assigned to get to know you. You came to the attention of SHIELD science last year, winning that undergraduate achievement award for your work in the Robotics field. I was asked to see if you’d be a good fit for SHIELD.”

“And Barton here?” he points to Clint. Clint doesn’t take that personally.

“You weren’t far off calling him my bodyguard.” Darcy says, honesty permeating from her. She doesn’t have fake earnest, she really wants Charlie to like her again, “He was assigned as my handler while I was getting to know you. I want you to know Charlie, that I do think you are a pretty decent person, and I would think that even if I wasn’t FORCED TO TAKE A PHILOSOPHY CLASS, AGENT HILL.”

Clint stifles a laugh. It’s not like Hill is just outside the door or anything. There are cameras in this room; she’s monitoring those for sure. Darcy….may not know that part, but as usually, instinct is strong in his girl.

“So what do you want me to do?”

Darcy grins, “We want to pay for your doctorate, first off. You are brilliant Charlie, and you shouldn’t have to pay for grad school. And we want you while you are doing that, and a few years after. We want to put you in top of the line labs, working with the best scientists, the best equipment and the best...okay, well, the only Tony Stark we have. He thinks you have talent.”

“And what if I say no? Are you going to try to grab me? Kill me? Like that Advanced Idea Mechanics group did?” He asks.

Clint answers, “No. We’d keep you under surveillance for a while, make sure you were safe and didn’t work against us, but it would taper off and you’d be left alone. So what do you say Charlie, are you in?”

“Charlie, do you want to save the world?” Darcy asks.

He’s very still for a an entire minute, breathing in and out but nods, “I guess there’s worse ways to make a living.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Major thanks go to [someassemblingrequired ](http://someassemblingrequired.tumblr.com/) for being my general cheerleader and bouncing board. And to[fuck yeah darcy lewis](http://fuckyeahdarcylewis.tumblr.com/) for organizing the whole week of prompts.
> 
> I took a lot of this week as a chance to experiment: A long story with several prompts, different POVs, writing something I’ve always been uncomfortable with (like porn, apparently, being able to talk sexual philosophy and smut are wildly different) and writing on the fly.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [All Dressed in Lace and Leather](https://archiveofourown.org/works/766913) by [Sometimesyoufly (faile02)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/faile02/pseuds/Sometimesyoufly)




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